Lecture Circuit

New York City is hosting Pride Week, an annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender pride.

Literary-minded Pride Week attendees should check out the free Sexy Pride Erotica reading tonight at 7 o'clock. Hosted by erotica editor and author Rachel Kramer Bussel (First-Timers, Glamour Girls, Up All Night) at Bluestocking Bookstore, it will feature a stack of 100 free cupcakes for lucky readers. Tomorrow morning she'll talk about pride week on mediabistro.com's Morning Media Menu. If you have other Pride Week-related literary events, share them in the comments section.

Here's more from the release: "True stories and hot queer erotica from the city's boldest, naughtiest writers. Featuring Bevin Branlandingham (Femmecast, Gayety), Sinclair Sexsmith (Sugarbutch.net), Charlie Vazquez (PANIC! reading series), Kathleen Warnock (Drunken! Careening! Writers!), Xan West (Hurts So Good, Best SM Erotica 2)."

The New York Public Library will host her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan tonight in a panel discussion, part of a special three-night series of conversations in the Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas Festival.

Entitled "Media: "A Catalyst for Change," the discussion will be moderated by Shamil Idriss from the Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund. Other panelists include Benjamin Barber (author of "Jihad vs. McWorld") and Andrea ter Avest Dahm, a dramatist from the Netherlands. Queen Noor will represent the King Hussein Foundation.

The series concludes tomorrow evening, and here's more from the release: "Popular media images or negative stereotypes that insult or humiliate Muslim groups have been shown to be related to the polarization between Muslim and Western societies. As rapid technological advances expand media's capacity to shape our views of the world as well as each other, this panel seeks to investigate what role entertainment media (film, TV and new media) can play in improving cross-cultural understanding."

Next week @DunkinDonuts and @WholeFoods will join @FlashlightWorthyBooks for an all-day workshop about the mysterious, rapidly-expanding world of Twitter--and now, GalleyCat readers can get a $100 discount on the workshop.

O'Reilly Media will give readers $100 off the admission price for Twitter Bootcamp on Monday, June 15, 2009. Just enter the discount code: "GALLEY" at checkout. GalleyCat will be there, reporting on the bits of 140-character wisdom.

As GalleyCat editor Ron Hogan reported last month: "Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein will be presenting their wisdom to a live audience in Manhattan, at "Twitter Boot Camp." (Disclosure: mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby is one of the scheduled presenters, and we're looking forward to covering the event for GalleyCat.) 'We're thinking about this as a training day,' Milstein told us, full of 'useful, actionable information' that should be of interest to corporate marketers, celebrities, authors, and any other public figures and institutions who want to stand out from the millions of other tweeters in the system."

Last week, contributors to Because I Love Her, an anthology of essays about what women writers have learned from their mothers and how they've tried to teach their daughters, met up at Brooklyn's Book Court for a group event. "The reading was fantastic," editor NIcki Richesin, who flew in from California for the gathering, emailed us afterwards. "Sheila Kohler did a dead-on impression of her mother-in-law's Kentucky accent," no mean feat for the South African author. "Sara Woster, Catherine Crawford and Laurie Gwen Shapiro delighted the audience with their dry sarcasm."

(From the left: Mary Alice Haug, Kohler, Emily Franklin, Heather Swain, Shapiro, Richesin, Crawford, Elise Miller and Woster.)

To get a sense of the anthology, here's a trailer directed by Shapiro with interviews with a handful of the 34 contributors.

The Mediabistro Circus blog reports that Cirque du Soleil will perform on the second and final day of our blog network's biggest conference of the year.

While GalleyCat looks forward to the real circus acts, we will be covering a panel discussion about publishing's metaphorical acrobatics in the 21st Century: From Gutenberg to MoveableType: Publishing's Next Edition, led by PC Magazine's executive editor, Dan Costa.

Here's a long list of other highlights: "Turn your passion into a business with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek. Give your brand personality with Gary Vaynerchuck, host of Wine Library TV. Build relationships that power success with Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone. Create a journalism of engagement with John A. Byrne, executive editor, Businessweek.com. Create your own social network with Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of social networking platform Ning.com. Click here to see all speakers."

BookExpo America hits New York City next week, and GalleyCat editors Ron Hogan and Jason Boog will both be reporting from the convention floor, workshops, and parties all week.

However, we also understand that this is a BEA in the middle of recession--not everyone who wants to attend the conference will be able to attend this year. GalleyCat can help with customized BEA coverage.

Check out the BEA schedule--if you are missing the conference this year but want to follow an event, feel free to email GalleyCat. We'll do our best to cover the most popular events and bring you the stories and videos you want to see.

Journalist Whitney McKnight just filed a literary dispatch for GalleyCat readers headed to France: "If you fantasize about being an American writing in Paris, Terrance Gelenter is your man. 'Everything to do with American literature in Paris eventually passes through my hands,' Gelenter explained."

McKnight continued: "If that's an exaggeration, then there must be a helluva lot of unknown American writers holed up in Gaulic garrets, since Gelenter's website, Paris Through Expatriot Eyes, is so chock-full of interviews with American literati living in the City of Lights, it's hard to think anyone's been overlooked."

"Gelenter routinely hosts salons (okay, book signings) featuring American authors published by well-known houses like Knopf and Random House. 'You could go to a free signing, but for 20 Euros, you'll have a more intimate experience, good food, good wine, and a very good time,' said Gelenter. A recent 'Paris Terrance' event featured Diane Johnson."

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Two mediabistro.com graduates released a brand new book recently, polishing their craft in Brett Leveridge's humor writing class.

Twin sisters Ellen Lupton and Julia Lupton published "Design your Life"--a wacky look at potted plants, pillows, bras, and "the other hopeless stuff you use, buy, water or put away everyday."

Here's more from our blogging siblings at MBToolBox: "They credit Brett with helping them 'develop a light, direct tone for this book about how stuff works and fails to work in ordinary situations.' The twins also write the popular Design-Your-Life blog.

We've just heard about mid-June's 140 Character Conference, a two-day exploration of the influence of Twitter on, well, just about everything, and we're fascinated. We recognize several of the participants because of their active role in the publishing community—folks like former Soft Skull executive editor Richard Nash and the Macmillan digital marketing crew of Ami Greko and Ryan Chapman, so we emailed organizer Jeff Pulver to ask if we could contribute as well:

"We would be glad to join Kaylie Jones and Kevin Heisler in the conversation about ways in which authors and publishers can connect with readers on Twitter," we told Pulver. "We'd especially be interested in breaking past the advice currently given to authors—'you HAVE to be on Twitter, everybody's doing it now'—and emphasizing the importance of a sincere interest in social networking combined with an authentic and consistent presence. And beyond the other publishing folks who will be in attendance, we're sure that there will be much to learn from the many other disciplines that will be represented amongst the cast of characters, and we look forward to sharing that knowledge with the readers of GalleyCat."

(We also pointed out that folks would be able to follow along on senior editor Ron Hogan's Twitter feed.)

Fingers crossed that this'll get us in the door!

(UPDATE: After talking with Heisler about authors and Twitter for a bit Friday afternoon, we're in! Meanwhile, we hear that the congregation of book publishers was brought together by indie publicist Russ Marshalek.)

Gay Talese is one of just three authors who appear as subjects in an exhibit of recent work by photograher Miriam Berkley currently being shown in the offices of the Manhattan borough president at the Municipal Building on 1 Center Street. But several literati came to admire the photographs during the opening reception: In addition to Talese, Elizabeth Strout (who's also in the exhibit) came, along with Christine Schutt, Frederic Tuten, Iris Smyles, and James Marcus. Literary agent Rita Rosenkranz and Turtle Point Press publisher Jonathan Rabinowitz were also in attendance. The exhibit can be seen through Tuesday, June 2.

(Disclaimer: Berkley took the author photograph for senior editor Ron Hogan's The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane in 2005.)

(Photo: Andy Mars)